(Please note who that is questioning Yates during her confirmation in 2015. Of course that was when the president he expected the AG to say no to was Obama...)

Proves my point good buddy.

How in the world does the incoming AG being on record saying it is NOT the AGs job to just defend the legality of anything the President tries to do... and to tell the President "No" when he tries to do something illegal... prove your point that it was her job to defend the legality of what Trump was trying to do when it was her official opinion that the EO was not legal????

She wasn't going to support it, not because she was correct in her belief of the legality of the EO, but because she already believed it was illegal.

The courts have sided with her opinion so far on that legality question. What is your extensive background in law that makes you more of a subject matter expert on it than the previous United States Attorney General AND multiple Federal Judges?

She believed it was illegal based on it, you know, violated the law.

Why ask her if you believe that she is wrong to believe as she does?

Why ask the subject matter expert for their input on the subject they are the expert on who is employed specifically to provide you with the services of said expertise when you (person with no training in said subject *whatsoever*) are going to disagree with their feedback on it?

Because she's the Attorney General with a lifetime of legal experience whose job it actually IS (among other things) to advise the President on things like whether his EOs are legal or not...and Trump is Trump... who knows not a damn thing about the law.

PeterZ wrote:I can see Sally Yates giving an honest opinion. She refused to defend the EO when it was her job was to defend the EO and let the Circuit Court decide on the merits. What makes anyone think her opinion would have been different if an EO worded differently was presented to her limiting travel to those countries?

What you're basically arguing is that since she believed the EO as written was illegal and therefore refused to defend it, she would also refuse to defend an EO written differently - presumably phrased so as to be legal? How does that follow?

Also, how is what she did not giving an honest opinion? Would maintaining the EO was legal even though she believed it was illegal be more honest?

PeterZ wrote:I can see Sally Yates giving an honest opinion. She refused to defend the EO when it was her job was to defend the EO and let the Circuit Court decide on the merits. What makes anyone think her opinion would have been different if an EO worded differently was presented to her limiting travel to those countries?

What you're basically arguing is that since she believed the EO as written was illegal and therefore refused to defend it, she would also refuse to defend an EO written differently - presumably phrased so as to be legal? How does that follow?

Also, how is what she did not giving an honest opinion? Would maintaining the EO was legal even though she believed it was illegal be more honest?

As sometimes happens my choice of words was poor. I don't believe the phrasing to be illegal. The 9th Circuit and Sally Yates disagrees. If it turns out that SCOTUS upholds the EO, then Sally yates and the 9th Circuit was wrong. Until then the stay holds. Asking her would have changed nothing. The Administration believes they are right and would have continued regardless.

It remains doubtful that the President avoided Yates opinion, it simply would not change his opinion on the matter.

I suspect that Yates' honest opinion is that any targeted travel and immigration ban is illegal. So any similar EO would have been deemed to be illegal, regardless of how its worded.

Annachie wrote:They actually admitted to not showing the immugration EO to the OGE or the AG, the two legal departments in the White House whose job it is, in part, is to say if an EO is legal or not.

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I can see Sally Yates giving an honest opinion. She refused to defend the EO when it was her job was to defend the EO and let the Circuit Court decide on the merits. What makes anyone think her opinion would have been different if an EO worded differently was presented to her limiting travel to those countries?

She probably would have at least said which aspects of it were questionable, allowing the writers of the Executive Order to clarify them so the confusion of the first weekend and court challenges to the final version of the order would have been less likely.

That's my biggest problem with President Trump, he doesn't seem to accept the possibility that people could disagree with him in good faith as opposed to as part of an agenda.

PeterZ wrote:Ok, what makes these polls more accurate than the polls leading to the election?

They're not. Trump's approval rating during the primaries and most of the campaign was within error of this number. It's been higher than that post-election but it's back now to where it normally has been. He was the first presidential candidate to win with a net negative rating (more people disliked him than liked him), even most of the people who voted FOR him didn't actually like him.

The polls keep asking the wrong questions, they keep asking the national approval rating. But frankly it doesn't matter whether 90% of the people in San Francisco hate him or 99% do.

The tracking poll that I want to see (that would be actually useful) is his approval rating among people who voted for Obama in 2008 and/or 2012 and voted for Trump in 2016. Preferably in the Rust Belt region. And I want to see it week by week. Is that approval rating trending down or is it trending up?

This would tell me the impact of his current actions on the key swing voters who got him elected. If those voters are trending toward disapprove he's in trouble.

Unless the pollsters start providing useful data, they're going to find themselves with egg on their face in 2020 again

Incidentally on the very very rare occasions when a useful poll is conducted, Trump is maintaining support among the people who matter.

Finally someone is doing the obvious and measuring this! So we may actually be getting some useful information for once